Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The release of the remake of “Red Dawn” (1984) takes us back to the Reagan era when
the Cold War still dominated American culture.
Amazingly, an entire generation of Americans has come of age with no
memory of this period when the battle with Soviet communism animated American
life and politics. Indeed, the original
“Red Dawn” remains an artifact of a time of heightened tensions when war—either
conventional or nuclear--between the United States and the Soviet Union seemed
a real possibility.

Once
the Cold War began in the late 1940s, its themes quickly worked their way into
popular culture. Horror films such as “Invasion
of the Body Snatchers” (1956) were also metaphors for a communist takeover of
the country. “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962)
famously showed how the Russians might use our own anti-communist demagogues to
sow division and gain a foothold in the country. Fears of nuclear war appeared frequently in
movies, especially in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when
films such as “Dr. Strangelove” (1964) and “Fail-Safe” (1964) premiered in
theaters.

Science
fiction also got into the act as the original “Star Trek”(1966-69) featured an
UN-like Federation of Planets facing off against the warlike Klingon Empire,
who represented the Soviet Union. At the
end of “Planet of the Apes,” (1968) Charlton Heston discovers that a nuclear
conflict has ravaged the planet, displacing humanity from its place atop the
evolutionary pyramid. Though they did
not disappear, such themes appeared less often during the 1970s when the Cold
War moderated under the détente policies of Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter.

Following
the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980, superpower tensions rose to
levels not seen since the 1950s and early 1960s. Reagan rejected the more compromising
policies of his Democratic and Republican predecessors and promised a tougher
stance against Soviet aggression around the world. Not mincing any words, Reagan referred to the
USSR as the “evil empire” and “the focus of evil in the modern world.” His administration significantly increased
defense spending and arms control negotiations between the two countries broke
down as Reagan and our NATO allies placed Pershing II missiles in Western
Europe to counter Soviet missiles in the Warsaw Pact. Fears of the possibility of nuclear
confrontation returned and were exacerbated by the fact that it was often
unclear who was running the Kremlin as leadership passed quickly from one aging
and ill leader to another between 1981 and 1985.

As
with the early days of the Cold War, movies and television again reflected the
anxieties of the time. “War Games”
(1983) and “Terminator” (1984) suggested that computers might precipitate a nuclear
conflict between the two superpowers that could virtually destroy humanity. Absent from the first two films, the Klingons
returned to the Star Trek universe in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock”
(1984) as they fought to gain control of the Genesis Device, a nuclear allegory
that could either bring new life to dead planets or destroy existing life on
already-habitable worlds. ABC aired “The
Day After” in 1983, a television film that tried to realistically depict the aftermath
of a nuclear war on the people of Kansas.
It became the most-watched television movie of all-time, provoking
national discussion about the dangers of the arms race.

Some
films were far campier as Sylvester Stallone, then at the peak of his star power,
starred in two films with Cold War themes.
In “Rambo: First Blood Part II” (1985), Stallone’s John Rambo returns to
Vietnam to free American POWs that have been held since the end of the war,
defeating both Vietnamese and Russian troops in the process. In “Rocky IV,” Rocky Balboa fights the
steroid-enhanced Soviet boxer Ivan Drago in Moscow, eventually defeating the
much larger Russian while winning the enemy crowd over in the process.

The
original “Red Dawn” fell firmly into the campy category. After Soviet troops attack Colorado with help
from their Cuban allies, a group of young fighters led by Patrick Swayze retreat
into the mountains and start a resistance group called “The Wolverines.” An extremely violent movie, it was one of the
first to feature a PG-13 rating. I’ll
spare readers the rest of the plot details, but “Red Dawn’s” plot did tap into
the anxieties of the era, albeit in cartoonish fashion.

It is
for this reason that I believe the remake will fail as a commercial
venture. No foreign nation today causes
even remotely the anxiety that the USSR did during the first Reagan term. Nothing better reveals this than the fact
that the remake’s initial cut featured a Chinese invasion of the United States,
but the studio vetoed this plotline because they did want to lose the potential
profits from the burgeoning Chinese market.
While fears of China pervaded the 2012 presidential campaign, Obama and
Romney competed to show who could be tougher in protecting American jobs from
low-wage labor, not American lives from Chinese military aggression. In the
final version, the studio altered the villain’s uniforms from Chinese to North
Korean, but they also don’t pose the threat the Soviet Union once did.

A
classic scene from the original “Red Dawn” shows Russian troops outside that
preeminent symbol of American capitalism, McDonald's. Of course, this scene did
become reality because Russian troops eventually ate at McDonald's a few years
later—in Moscow! After Mikhail Gorbachev
came to power in the USSR in 1985, he implemented policies supporting glasnost
(political openness) and perestroika (economic liberalization). As a result of the latter, foreign investment
slowly entered the country. Unable to control the impact of his reforms, Gorbachev
and the Soviet Union fell because of the economic stagnation of 75 years of
Communist rule as well as four decades of American containment policies. America won the Cold War and the original “Red
Dawn” became a relic of a bygone era.
Still, the remake’s debut reminds us that a generation ago two
nuclear-armed superpowers stood toe-to-toe with the potential to destroy
humanity.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

I
highly recommend “Skyfall,” which is the best Bond movie in some time. Combined with “Casino Royale” (2006), Daniel
Craig has reinvigorated the franchise and banished the memory of the Pierce
Brosnan era (1995-2002). Like the
“Batman” series, the Bond films have made a dramatic and welcome transition
from the frivolousness of their 1990s incarnations to the more realistic post
9-11 era.

Reminiscent
of the “Bourne” series, “Skyfall”
demonstrates the increased seriousness of espionage films since 2001. Craig’s Bond offers none of the quips
associated with previous iterations of the character, most notably Roger Moore,
who played 007 throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s. Instead, he seems deadly serious and focused
on defending England from terrorism.

In
“Skyfall,” Bond has to contend with the threat from Javier Bardem’s Joker-like
villain, Silva. Like Heath Ledger in
“Dark Knight,” he plans a series of elaborate attacks to sow chaos. Silva’s final aim is to embarrass and kill Judi
Dench’s M. To do so, he launches deadly
attacks on the headquarters of MI-6 and other real targets.

Unlike
the post-Cold War, pre-9/11 Brosnan films, the threats posed by Silva are
relatively realistic. Gone are bizarre
plots by Rupert Murdoch wannabes (“Tomorrow Never Dies”), strange characters
who can no longer feel pain (“The World is Not Enough”) or evil North Korean
military officers who somehow became English businessman (the embarrassing “Die
Another Day”).

The
three films starring Craig have been prequels that show him evolving into something
resembling Sean Connery’s original Bond.
Q makes a welcome reappearance in “Skyfall,” though he provides Bond
with gadgets that are not as over-the-top as previous films, such as the
invisible car Brosnan uses in “Die Another Day.”

In
testimony before an oversight committee, M firmly established 007’s move from
the Cold War to the war on terror, noting that the world’s threats are no
longer nations, but individuals. “How
safe do you feel?” she asks, right before another attack. With Craig playing Bond and (SPOILERS) Ralph
Fiennes succeeding Dench as M, at least the Bond franchise is safe.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Two
separate arcs revolving around Nucky Thompson’s wife Margaret as well as his
mistress Billie Kent reflect the changing roles of women and attitudes toward
sex during the Roaring 1920s.Kent’s
evolving career also reveals the emergence of feature films during the crucial decade.

After
she sees a woman lose a baby in the hospital she supports early in the season, Margaret
became involved in efforts to educate women about sex and pregnancy. Her plans,
however, are complicated by the fact that she is working within the confines of
a Catholic hospital.In “The Pony,” It
turns out the woman’s health problems revolved around an attempt to end her
pregnancy before it came to term.Despite
her husband’s desires, she doesn’t want any more children and asks Margaret to
help her acquire a diaphragm.Margaret
complies and asks a doctor friend for two, one for the woman and another for
herself.Margaret’s personal request is
likely an attempt to facilitate her own affair with Nucky’s partner in crime,
Owen Slater.

Indeed,
family size declined as the use of contraception rose in the early 20th
century.In 1900, the average woman
mother gave birth to 3 or 4 children.By
1920, this number had fallen to 2 or 3.Enabled
by contraception as well the greater anonymity provided by big city life, more
and more people also engaged in premarital sex.

As a
flapper living on her own, Billie Kent also reveals key aspects of gender roles
during the era.More and more women had
their own dwellings as ¼ to 1/3 of women lived in private apartments.When Nucky offers Billie financial security
for life, she responds like a stereotypical “New Woman” of the time, saying,
“I’m on my own… I have been for years…I like it.”

After
Nucky muscled an actor to perform in Kent’s play on Broadway, she also moves
into the burgeoning film industry.Following the success of D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” in 1915,
movies boomed after World War I as ticket sales doubled and 20,000 new theaters
were built.As portrayed in last year’s
Oscar-winning movie “The Artist,” the exaggerated movements of silent film can
be seen in Kent’s tryout.See href> http://popculturemeetshistory.blogspot.com/2012/02/artist-and-hollywoods-golden-age.html”
for more on cinema in the 1920s.

Kent’s
fate is uncertain at the end of the episode and Nucky’s involvement in Washington
politics intensifies during this episode.With 5 episodes left, It seems season three is heading toward a
compelling conclusion.